If you compare a typical classroom from 100 years ago to many classrooms around the world today, and also consider the subjects being studied and how they are being taught and learned, there may not be many differences. 

The traditional pedagogy, which we’ll call Newtonian, was developed for the Industrial Revolution, and modeled on the notion of students being identical point masses, where same-aged children get the same classes and content, are supposed to learn it in the same time period, take the test, and then move on regardless of the results. In this assembly-line, scheduled approach, students with special needs and those who have fewer resources and opportunities outside of school due to socioeconomic status and other reasons, tend to fall behind. In Newton’s physics language, the application of the same forces (lessons) on identical masses will determine the change in motion (academic progress) with exactly the same results, since F_net = ma provides a deterministic model.

What if we modernize the pedagogical and philosophical foundations of education, like we had to do for Newton’s laws in physics, and think of students quantum mechanically? Individuals are no longer considered to be identical point masses with a predictable and fixed future. Instead, we are each complex wave functions, Ψ, which are a mix of possible states we could observe, depending on how and where we observe the person. Now we have unique outcomes for each student, as they leave lessons in different places because they have unique mixtures and blends of different traits, moods, and talents—probabilistic rather than deterministic. In other words, special order rather than mass production. 

For example, many of us are familiar with the particle–wave duality of an electron. Think of the electron as having two possible personality states, a particle or a wave. When we are not observing the electron, we cannot know which personality it is exhibiting at any given moment, which means we can only describe it in terms of the probability of being a particle or a wave. Its personality wave function, Ψp, is the superposition of the two possibilities Ψ_wave + Ψ_particle. When and how we observe it, based on the type of experiment we construct, will collapse Ψp into either the particle or wave personality that we observe. 

Apply this concept to a human being. Consider how complex one of our Ψp’s is! The number of personalities or moods we could exhibit when observed is large: happy, sad, confused, angry, jealous, complimentary, loving, joyful, depressed, and so on. Before a student walks into our room, they are a mix of these possibilities, and we have no idea which one will show up that day, since we don’t know the unique experiences of each student. However, because life and the moods we exhibit are dynamic, and teachers choose the experiment being performed on our students while in class, we have some influence on the piece of a student’s Ψp that collapses.

The experiments we run on our students are a combination of lessons, content, expectations, physical environment, the classroom culture and interactions among the students, and even our own mood and behaviors. It’s a highly complicated experiment with many dynamic variables. With every person in the room having a unique Ψp, each student will react to the same experiment differently. We have some level of control over the experiment, and our job is to try to increase the probabilities for each student to collapse into states where they can best learn, grow, think, wonder, make mistakes without feeling marginalized, collaborate, question, explore, express their thoughts, feel safe, smile, and know they matter because they are unique wave functions and not identical point masses.

A second unique wave function every student has might be called the “intelligence wave function,” Ψi. Using Gardner’s (1983) theory of multiple intelligences as an example, there are different strengths or weights (probabilities) to each of the nine intelligences for each student, in a unique mix or profile. Think of the lesson of the day—the experiment—and which intelligence(s) state is likely to collapse for a student. If we do the same types of experiments daily, those with strengths in the required intelligences do well and move ahead, but those who don’t have a similar profile fall behind, and may never realize they can also learn our content and do well if the experiment we run is changed to allow their most significant strengths to collapse! Variety and holistic methods matter.

Thinking in terms of a quantum mechanical student, who is unique with their own Ψp and Ψi, responds differently to every lesson in comparison to every other student, will help us change our mindset and approach to how we do school from a one-size-fits-all Newtonian pedagogy to a transformative, disruptive, inclusive, holistic and paradigm-shifting Quantum Mechanical pedagogy. ■ 

Reference

Gardner, H. 1983. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Mark Vondracek (mvondracek@comcast.net) is a physics teacher at Evanston Township High School, Evanston, IL.